how to...

... Appear a Success: the Definitive Guide to Looking Like You Know What You're Doing and Having Fun at the Same Time.

• Approach problems as if this is the gabablooey-jillionth time you've done it.

• Even if you don't know what you're doing, mutter to yourself and nod your head like you do.

• When faced with a situation in which you positively cannot sort out, pose the challenge to anyone nearby, under the pretext of looking for a second opinion because multiple input is the method all successful people use.

• There are few worse things than bungling over something you DEFINITELY know how to do. In such an event, just start again as if nothing happened. If questioned, say the first time was a test run.

• If competition, where you are the clear favourite to win, and you somehow lose, simply shrug and smile. You will appear to have conceded a loss due to you not putting in full effort, or if anything, come across as a very good sport, which ALWAYS makes you look like you've won so often that it doesn't really matter anyway.

• Should a significant other pose a sticky situation due either to your own carelessness or personal hormonal state, you can do one of three things - ignore the problem, become a sopping idiot, or take firm control of the situation. Of these three, the last one best makes you appear on top. Unfortunately, whether or not firm control is the APPROPRIATE way to handle things is moot.

• When it comes to pronouncing difficult foreign words (READ: French, Chinese Menus), there will come a time where you will make a mistake. To avoid the accompanying embarrassment following a correction, simply arch your eyebrow and nod sagely. It will appear as if you are either apologetic for the faux pas, or that the corrective party had passed some obscure/unknown test.

(to be continued...)

springtime...

... for Hitler and Germany, as the cheesy musical goes.

Spring, when a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of love.

Spring, the squiggly thing that obeys Young's Law.

Spring, the kind of roll they serve at very angmoh-ified Chinese restaurants.

Spring, the action with which you disarm a trap meant to either entangle your lower appendages or used as humour devices in the old Warner Brothers cartoons.

Spring, the onions I rarely ever know what to do with, also confused with shallots.

Spring, an emergence of subterranean water in a relatively constant manner and quality, often bottled to make overpriced tasteless beverages of a very French variety.

Spring, a vale from which I often get roast pork from and eat food in a marine mammal (read: Walrus) restaurant.

Spring, the time where the weather becomes fickle enough that it's too warm to be wearing full length pants but cold enough to freeze off your gonads.

Spring, when MY fancy turns to thoughts of a tiresome existence as a corporate lackey if I keep on this path I'm on.